imho--USB 2 & cf would both be useful. don't sweat on board ethernet, a usb port is more adaptable. keep a cf slot. the tech is driven by cameras and is likely to continue improving without weird drm-ish crap happening to it.

- I think if CF is in it should be external, particularly if ethernet won't be on-board. I don't like using USB as my "network" connection. It's okay for peripherals, but for actual networking I vastly prefer ethernet over USB and some kludge to make it look like a NIC, that only works on the one computer it's running on. Ikky. I'd much rather plug into my network like a real computer, when I'm on the wire.- I like the micro-SD idea for the OS, with miminum internal flash, and I really like stampsm's idea of using a "break-out" ribbon cable for development. I'd still like to keep at least one, and without CF more than one, full-sized SD slot.- Biometrics are a nice-to-have, but not necessary, imho. I'd rather type in a password and have Raid-on-SD than have a bio scanner, or even a camera.

there is a CF audio card, discussed in another forum, but it's designed for high-end. A more generic twin-channel analogue I/O system which could be pressed into service as an oscilloscope would be nice - use at 44 or 48kHz, 16 bit * 2 and it's an audio capture/playback system, use at 1MHz, 8 bit, it's a simple 'scope.

well there are always usb to ethernet adaptors, and with a usb hub you could have 4

haha RAID on SD, sounds good still in 2 minds about the finger print reader, it dosent really bring any security to the device like the smartcard does. but at the moment its out as i cant find a supplier

only reason i like it is because even on my Z i used very long passwords (23 chars or more) and its a pain to type.

there will be a slot for a CF card but i am tempted to make it cf on ata rather than apure CF card so that if you wanted a larger model and you had room then you could attach an ipod drive to the thing. i need to work out the space allocation first

How thin can this hardware be made? The thickness of my Z has always been the thing that bugs me the most. A clamshell device that is long, narrow and thin, would have a big enough screen and keyboard for normal use, and still fit in a jacket or back pocket.

I want one of those (even if it's not in a case to start with as i like to fiddle with new gadgets (and maybe do some kernel hacking - since i don't have any of the tools (oszilloscope, logic analyzer,..) to do anything on the hardware myself really.

will there be a possibility of getting one (with or without case) early on to do testing and stuff?

yeah there is actually, it will be beta but basically i will have the plans on the internat as well as where to order the board from, you send them the design and they send you a populated board

for the dev model not everything has to be soldered on, there is also the posability of a cheap dev board that is nothing but RAM and the CPU (image is downloaded over a parrelel port jtag cabel or usb aand exectues a linux kernel with ramdisk from there for testing, great idea for a cluster of these (my compile farm in the futre))

- Your OpenPDA link says "FORBIDDEN" on April 5, Da_Blitz. I presume any data on getting a dev system together will appear there?- I'd prefer an Ethernet port. My experience is that "networking" with USB does little more than complicate an incredibly simple and reliable system. "Progress", I guess...

i know it sasys forbidden,im still trying to get the site set up, dont want to use apache or any form of dynamic page generation where posible however i will have to make an exception for the wiki and webmail but i might move that to another host

i have the basis for a webpage generation system that uses make to build the entire site when somthing is updated, i have my resons for staying static.

as for the power supply, reson its not up is its really a monolithic chip rather than several seperate chips so there is no real point in putting it up

- Unfortunate, the poor Ethernet. It's no larger than USB A, but that's a lot of area compared to mini-A, I guess. (sniffle) I was so hoping to have real networking. USB networking is "real" about like Winbloze is a "real" OS.